Sabrina Grimm's Adventures in Wonderland
by CanaryMoon
Summary: Sabrina falls down the rabbit-hole and Puck follows to save her life, as usual. PuckxSabrina, but not mushy or OOC! K because that's what the books are, pretty much! Set after book 5 but before the end of book 6.
1. Down the Rabbit Hole

**My first fanfic! I've been reading it for ages though. ;) Anyway, just so you know, it's _supposed_ to be random (it's Alice in Wonderland, for pete's sake) and hopefully Puck and Sabrina are In Character! I really tried hard with that, although I couldn't help but write it in my own style as opposed to Michael Buckley's. I often wonder if my writing is too repetitive, so reviews would be nice, especially since, as I said, this is my first fic.**

**Oh, and I gave it this title because Lewis Carroll's book (which is wonderful and you should go read it if you haven't) is actually called _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, _not _Alice in Wonderland, _as Disney (much as I love them) likes you to think. That is all.**

***

Sabrina Grimm had never fallen down the rabbit-hole before. You might be thinking, 'hey, I've never fallen down the rabbit-hole before, either' but that is because you probably do not live in Ferryport Landing, where riding magic carpets and living with Shakespeare characters - and yes, falling down rabbit-holes - is perfectly ordinary. Actually, Sabrina had been trying to escape her Shakespearean housemate on Aladdin's flying carpet when she fell down the rabbit-hole.

She wasn't really sure how it had happened, only that one moment she was whizzing through the air on the carpet, and the next she was whizzing through the air with_out_ the carpet. She could only assume it had something to do with Puck. She wasn't overly concerned, since he was fleet on his wings and would, of course, catch her just seconds before she splattered to her death in the peaceful hills below. Absently, she wondered if he had knocked her off the carpet so he could do exactly that and then gloat about saving her life _again. _The fact that _he_ was the reason she needed saving wouldn't bother him.

But the expected arms beneath her, accompanied by the whoosh of fairy wings and a filthy, boyish grin, never came. Instead, she crashed through something hard and painful that sounded and felt like old wood. She couldn't understand what was happening; she ought to have hit the ground long before, but she looked up and saw the ground and a gaping hole above her and continued falling. The fall slowed, however, and she started taking note of her surroundings. It was the sort of thing detectives did and Sabrina was a detective. The hole was long, obviously, since she hadn't reached the end of it, and in some ways it was exactly what you would expect of a rabbit-hole. The walls were cylindrical and made of packed black earth, with roots and worms wriggling in and out of it.

That was where normalcy ended, however, and madness began. There were all sorts of peculiar things on the walls. There was a portrait of a fat pompous king who looked like Henry the Eighth, but Sabrina couldn't be sure, to which someone had added googly eyes, a moustache, and lipstick. They had also hung the painting upside down. Sabrina only noticed the armchair clinging near the wall when she landed on it.

"Oof!" she grunted but then used the reprieve as an opportunity to study the tunnel further. There was a pot of tea, continuously pouring itself into a cup, which promptly tipped over and dumped its contents down the hole. Then it straightened up again and was refilled. A bookshelf hovered directly beneath her feet, and she reached down to pull out a book. In doing so, she tumbled off the couch and continued her leisurely descent down the tunnel.

"Well, this is obviously the rabbit-hole," Sabrina said aloud and opened the book. Inside it was gibberish, as far as she could tell. The words weren't even written in straight lines. "As if anyone could read this!" she exclaimed and set the tome down on the top of a passing china cabinet.

She attempted to look down, which only made her turn a somersault and end up exactly how she started, so she had no way of knowing how much longer she would be falling. For a brief moment she wondered what was taking Puck so long, but a tree growing sparkling pink paper hearts pulled her attention away. She plucked one of the hearts as she passed and examined it in her hands. It crumbled as she turned it over and covered her palms with glitter which refused to rub off no matter how she scrubbed her hands on her jeans.

"I don't remember Alice falling for this long," she commented, but it had been a very long time since she read the story. Just as she finished this thought, however, her feet hit something hard. Her legs were still accustomed to falling and buckled, sending her face-first into the dizzying black and white tiles. Another "Oof!" escaped her lips when something heavy landed on top of her.

"Honestly, Grimm," said the something before she kicked it off of her. "Of all the stupid places to fly a magic carpet, you had to go right above the rabbit-hole to Wonderland."

Sabrina picked herself up and left Puck on the floor. "Everything would have been fine if you hadn't knocked me off of it."

Puck was indignant. "I didn't knock you off it!"

"Oh, so I just decided to fall off it to my death, is that it?" she demanded, hands on her hips.

"I wouldn't be surprised!" he insisted, jumping to his feet.

"Why would I do a stupid thing like that?"

"Because you know how much I hate saving your butt all the time?" Puck suggested. Sabrina rolled her eyes and threw her hands up in the air, turning away from him. The wonky little room was far more interesting than him anyway.

"Or maybe," he continued, "you just love that I save you all the time and since I haven't done for a whole day you were - "

Sabrina wandered a little ways away. She was sure she could see a pattern in the mismatched tiles on the floor, and she felt a sudden determination to follow it. Something in her brain told her to stop and stay with Puck, even if he was rambling, but her feet refused to listen and her eyes stayed glued to the floor. She walked until she saw a little glass table in front of her which her brain knew hadn't been there before, but it looked so at home and perfectly suited to the room that she though it just must have been there all along.

There was a little white box on it and when she picked it up she saw it was covered in carvings of rabbits and clocks. Sabrina flicked the tiny brass clasp and opened it. Inside was a collection of tiny cakes. One was star-shaped, another circular, and more besides. She picked up the star. It was golden yellow, glistening with mint-green frosting. It was topped with a chalky Valentine's Day heart, bearing the words 'EAT ME'. Sabrina's mouth was only too happy to oblige it, even though her brain was screaming at her not to.

"It could be that you are actually crazy and have a death wish and just don't know it and really _did _throw yourself off the carpet on purpose and that's why - " Puck's voice suddenly changed. "Hey! Grimm, no! What are you doing? Don't eat that. Put it down!"

The glass table tipped and shattered when he ran into it, knocking the box flying out of her hand. But it was too late; Sabrina put the cake in her mouth, chewed, and swallowed it before he even reached her. In the blink of an eye, she was growing. First she realized she was taller than Puck, which she never had been before, and then she had to sit down because her head was touching the ceiling, but when she did, her head was still touching the ceiling. Then, since her foot had nowhere else to go, it slammed into Puck, which was unfortunate for him since it was now as big as he was, and pushed him all the way to the wall where it would have squashed him if he had not flown up above it. Sabrina was bent almost double in the tiny room; her shoulders were pressing against the dirt ceiling and crushing the tunnel.

"Puck!" she cried. "What do I do?"

"Uh, you need to drink something," he said, searching the room.

"Hurry!" She could feel the soil crumbling above her. It rained on her, falling down her shirt and into her hair. When she finally stopped growing, one of the lamps which had been suspended in the hole rested on her shoulder.

"Got it!" Puck cried triumphantly, holding up a sparkling crystal bottle. She had no idea where he got it from but didn't care. It was large and bulky in his grubby hand, but it was little more than a thimble to Sabrina. She took it eagerly, forgetting to be careful. The glass cracked between her fingers, and the clear liquid it held spilled out with the blood from the cuts.

Puck's face turned red with annoyance. "Geez, Grimm! Can't you be more careful?"

Sabrina looked and the glass in her hand and panicked a little. "What now?"

"I don't know!" the fairy snapped, then softened ever so slightly. "I guess you could try lick it off your fingers."

This idea didn't really appeal to Sabrina since her fingers were bleeding where the glass had broken, and there was still glitter from the paper heart all over them, but she did it anyway, carefully flicking the shards away before she stuck her fingers in her mouth. As suddenly as when she ate the cake, she was back to her normal size, shorter than Puck and far, far beneath him, as he was still floating up near the ceiling.

She felt a little dizzy. She wondered if it was because of the psychedelic roof tiles or her size-changing adventure. That didn't make sense - she had eaten Eat-me cakes before and she hadn't felt dizzy then. But the tiles where so pretty and colourful, surely it wasn't them either.

"I think I like the blue ones best," she said, without realizing she had spoken.

"What?" Puck asked, sitting down beside her and squinting suspiciously at the roof tiles. Sabrina was watching the blue ones dance with the green ones while the red ones acted annoyed instead of just asking the yellow ones to dance, like any sensible person would have done. She didn't see it, but she could feel Puck turn his suspicious gaze to her. It quickly became anger. "Stupid Wonderland," he muttered. Then he jumped up. "Wait! Roof tiles! No!" His wings unfurled and he whirled around to inspect the room. The only evidence left of Sabrina's growth spurt was the mound of dirt on the floor, crowned with the still-glowing lamp. The dirt ceiling, and most importantly, the tunnel, was gone, replaced by the dancing tiles.

There was no way out.


	2. Queen of Sneaks

**Chapter Two! Thanks to the three lovely people who reviewed Chapter One! You made my day!**

**Oh, btw - it occurred to me that it's kind of unlikely that Puck and Sabrina would both think of _exactly _the same nickname, but then I thought, they're so alike (you can tell by the way they're always agreeing with each other ;) ) that they probably think almost exactly the same way.**

***

"Stupid, stupid Wonderland!" Puck growled and turned back to Sabrina. "Well, now you've done it, Grimm. We're going to have to take the long way."

"The long way where?" she asked, her voice sounded dreamy and faraway, even to her own ears. What was wrong with her? She couldn't seem to get her eyes to focus on one thing for very long and her brain hopped around, rattling inside her skull as it tried to keep up with them.

"Home," Puck said, grabbing her hands and pulling her to her feet. He let go of them and found pink glitter covering one of his own. "Gross! Where did this come from?"

Sabrina looked at her hands, expecting to see the same sparkles, but one of her hands was completely clean. "I don't know," she said uncertainly. She probably could have spent the rest of the day - the rest of her life, even - just standing there, staring at her hands, waiting for the sparkles to reappear. Puck scowled at her, turning her hands over and pushing them down to her sides. If he hoped this would stop her from staring at them, he was disappointed. So he reached out a dirty finger and pushed her forehead back until she was staring straight ahead rather than down.

Sabrina blinked. She could not account for the last few moments at all. What on earth was happening to her? She didn't have much time to think about it. Puck tugged on her hand and all but dragged her to a short little door in the wall. It was dark reddish wood, rounded on the top, with a big golden knocker. There was no doorknob.

Sabrina rocked on her heels, drifting away from Puck, but she stopped when his hand clamped down tighter on hers. "Stand still, Grimm," he said, then muttered something under his breath and studied the door a moment. Then he reached out and banged on it.

"Hey!" the doorknocker said, morphing into a face, like Ebenezer Scrooge's had done. "I'm here for a reason, you know!"

Puck and Sabrina both jumped back. "Gah!" Puck cried.

"I mean, would you put a knocker on a door if you wanted people to pound on it with their grubby little fists? No!" the doorknocker continued. "And speaking of which, the door's not gonna be happy about all those grease marks. Don't you ever wash, kid?"

"No, he doesn't," Sabrina said, suddenly realizing how dirty Puck's hand was and in turn, how much she didn't want to be touching it.

"Washing is for sissies!" Puck sneered.

"And those of us who do not wish to contract communicable diseases. If you don't mind, could you let your friend there do the knocking?" the face asked. "I've just been polished, see."

Puck scowled. "Fine."

Sabrina reached out and gingerly picked up the face's heavy nose ring, letting it fall back against the back-plate. It made a loud chiming sound.

"Oh, why do I make such a wretched noise?" the knocker said.

"What?" Puck snapped in surprise.

"What kind of doorknocker sounds like _that?" _it wailed. "That's no knock. Anyone'd think I was a silly little bell instead of a proud gilded doorknocker."

"I think it sounds very pretty," Sabrina reassured him.

"Really?" it said, looking excited. Then it frowned. "Doorknockers aren't supposed to be pretty! We're supposed to - oh drat, I missed it! Would you mind knocking again?"

"Missed what?" Puck asked.

"I guess so," Sabrina said, doing as she was asked. The ring fell, again with a chime, and though the face cringed, it didn't lament the sound.

"Who's there?" it asked.

"The Trickster King and the Queen of Sneaks," Puck said grandly. Sabrina barely stifled a gasp. How did he know about her nickname? _Nobody_ knew that nickname. She'd made it up on her own and given it to herself. She eyed him suspiciously, but if there was any secret in his words, he didn't seem to know about it. Maybe he'd come up with the same nickname on his own. She didn't like that idea at all.

"The Trickster King and the Queen of Sneaks who?" asked the doorknocker.

Sabrina and Puck looked at each other. "Huh?" they asked in unison.

"The Trickster King and the Queen of Sneaks who?" the knocker repeated. "It's a knock knock joke obviously. That's my job."

"Your job is to make knock knock jokes?" Sabrina asked.

"Yes, and that's not the right answer." The knocker sighed as if it was dealing with idiots. "You can't get in unless you say the right answer."

"Well, what are we supposed to say?" Puck asked.

"The right answer," the knocker said. "I thought I'd mentioned that."

"Oh brother," Puck said.

"That's not the right answer," the knocker pointed out. "Unless you two are brothers, which you can't be, because one of you's a girl. Are you brothers?"

Puck opened his mouth to reply, then shut it again angrily. "Hmph!" was the only sound he made.

There was a moment of silence. Sabrina assumed that this meant Puck was through with the doorknocker and it was up to her to get the door open. "I don't get it," she told the face. "How do we know what the right answer is?"

"Well, if it answers the question, it's probably the right answer," the knocker said helpfully.

Sabrina's brain was spinning like it had just been on a roller coaster full of loop-the-loops. "Okay," she said, holding her free hand to her head. "Let's start over."

"All right," the knocker agreed. "Go ahead and knock,"

"Again?" she asked.

"I thought you wanted to start over. Every knock knock joke starts with a knock."

"Oh brother," Puck said again.

"Oookay," Sabrina said, and knocked.

"Who's there?" said the knocker.

"The Trickster King and the um, Queen of Sneaks," she said, feeling self-conscious saying it.

"The Trickster King and the um, Queen of Sneaks who?" the knocker asked. "Hmm, that's a little wordy. Still, it's something new," he added, almost to himself.

Sabrina looked at Puck for help, but he just shrugged. "Uh, Sabrina and Puck?" she said hopefully. She felt stupid, sure that this was the wrong thing to say.

"Oh very good!" the knocker exclaimed. Then he frowned. "Are you Sabrina and Puck?" he asked.

"Yes," they said together.

"And also the Trickster King and the um, Queen of Sneaks?"

"Yes," Sabrina said again, hesitantly this time.

"Oh very good!" the knocker exclaimed again. "You found the right answer! Come on in!"

At this, the little door swung open. Sabrina had to bend over to get through it. Puck followed, lifting and then dropping the doorknocker's ring as he did. "Thanks," he said, with his devilish grin.

"You're welcome. Hey! What did I say about your filth? Look at this! I'm going to need polishing all over again! You little brat!"

But Puck only snickered and pushed the door shut with his sneaker.

"That wasn't very nice," Sabrina scolded the fairy.

"Nah, but it was fun," Puck said.

"And what's this Queen of Sneaks business?" she demanded. She was trying to concentrate on something she knew for sure - like being annoyed with Puck. If she started looking around the room she was sure she'd start feeling dizzy again.

"Dunno," the fairy said disinterestedly. "Just something I thought up."

"Oh," Sabrina said, trying to sound as neutral as possible. If it sounded like she hated it, he'd say it every chance he got. If it sounded like she thought it was cool, it would be as if he'd given her a compliment, which would be awkward. And there was no way she was going to tell him that that's what she liked to call herself. That would be admitting they had something in common. She shuddered at the thought.

Now that Sabrina had nothing to say, she turned to the room. Its walls were a deep maroon colour, with a mesmerizing pattern of squares that had her tilting her head from one side to the other as she studied it.

"Grimm, what are you looking at?" Puck interrupted.

She didn't answer. Couldn't he see she was looking at the wall? He flew over and dragged her away from it. "I hate this place. Come on."

He pulled her over to the opposite wall and pulled back a green velvet curtain. Then she followed him down a twisting, circular hallway.

"What's wrong with this place?" she asked him. Why did her voice sound so funny? It sounded like she was half-asleep and thought everything was wonderful.

"Because it's stupid," he said. "And it makes people - especially girls like you - act stupider than normal."

"I'm not being stupid!" she snapped. There! Her voice sounded almost normal again.

Puck snorted and they continued down the hall. Sabrina let him pull her along. While they walked, she tried to decide if the walls were red with white stripes or white with red stripes.

Puck interrupted her thoughts again. "Grimm, am I going to have to _drag _you across this entire country?"

"What? What do you mean?"

"I mean, would you quit trying to go the opposite direction?"

"Opposite direction?" Sabrina frowned.

"Yeah, you know, left instead of right, or backwards instead of forward."

"I'm not…" Sabrina trailed off. Had she been going the opposite way? She hadn't meant to. They started walking again and she tried hard to concentrate on going the same direction as Puck. But the walls were just so distracting. She couldn't help but stare at them.

Puck tugged her hand hard. "I have an idea, Grimm."

Sabrina didn't like it when Puck had ideas. "What kind of idea?" she asked suspiciously.

"Talk," he said.

That was not what she'd expected him to say. "About what?"

"Anything. You like talking, don't you? You're a girl. You must like talking."

"Hey!" Sabrina protested, but quickly relented. "What good will me talking do?"

"Well, I've noticed you're more like yourself when you're yelling at me about something, so I'm hoping it'll keep you from running off and staring at walls for the rest of your life."

Sabrina paused to consider this. She had to admit, it made sense. And with her head feeling fuzzy as it was, she thought that maybe right now was a good time to trust someone else's judgement. Even if that someone else was Puck, the oldest little boy in the universe. "Okay," she agreed, but couldn't think of anything else to say. Sometimes it was easier to talk when you didn't have to.

"You are not talking," Puck pointed out after a moment of silence.

"I was trying to think of something to say," she explained.

The fairy muttered something again. She wondered if it was 'oh brother.' "Look Grimm," he said, "it doesn't matter what you talk about, just that you talk. Ask me annoying questions, sing a song, I don't care." He paused. "On second thought, don't sing."

She stuck her tongue out at him. It was immature, but what did she care? "Fine. Where are we?"

Puck groaned. "Oh man, I take it back. Just ask questions. Not annoying questions."

"What's annoying about that?"

"Well duh, Grimm, where do you think we are?"

"Hello, you've been _living_ fairy tales for four thousand years. I'm twelve and I just started reading them a few months ago. Forgive me for not being up to date on my faraway kingdoms."

"I thought you read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."

She had. Or had she? It was all so confusing. She did seem to remember saying something to herself about an Alice on her way down the hole, but still… "have I really?" she asked.

"Yeah, just a little while ago."

"How do you know?"

Puck shrugged. "Well, see, it was _just a little while ago. _Like a week or two, maybe. I walked into the living room and you were sitting on the couch and I asked you what you were reading and you said 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'."

"And then you threw a glop grenade at me or something, right?"

"I did not!"

"I had a normal conversation with you and I don't remember it?"

"I told you, this place messes with your head." As an afterthought, he added, "and besides, only that part of the conversation was normal. It ended with you throwing the book at my head."

Sabrina brightened. "Did it hit you?"

"No," Puck said, a little too quickly.

Sabrina grinned. "It totally hit you, didn't it?"

"It did not!"

"Whatever," she said, still grinning. The fairy grumbled, but she continued before he could think of a response. "You said before that this place makes girls act stupid. Have you been here before?"

"Possibly," he said unhelpfully.

"With _girls?" _she asked. She made herself smirk. She didn't want to admit that this bothered her, even to herself. If she smirked, he'd think she was mocking him instead of being jealous. She had no business being jealous of him anyway. Or so she told herself - until her mind conjured up the image of her and Puck's married, future selves and she couldn't deny that her heart felt a little stab from the green-eyed monster.

"No way!"

"Then how do you know that girls act stupid when they're here?"

"Well duh, have you met Alice?"

"No, why?"

"She's like, the dumbest girl you could ever meet. She might even be dumber than you."

"Gee, thanks," Sabrina said.

"This place makes people a little crazy if they stay too long. And Alice _definitely _stayed too long," Puck continued in a low voice, his eyes glowing with excitement as if he was telling a ghost story. "There's something in the air… it makes you forget. Of course, it doesn't work on me, because I'm a sensible boy instead of a girl like you who's always asking questions and stuff. That was Alice's problem too. You know what they say, 'curiosity killed the cat.'"

"What do cats have to do with anything?"

"Nothing," Puck said exasperatedly. "It's just a saying. I mean Alice was too curious. So are you."

"Well, I _am _a detective." Sabrina tried not to sound too proud, but she didn't succeed.

Puck clucked dismissively and waved the comment aside with his free hand.

Sabrina thought a moment. "What do you mean, 'it makes you forget'? Forget what?"

"What happened last week, where you're from… some people even forget their own name." The fairy turned to look at her. "Those are the ones that never come back."


	3. What Scares You the Most

**Here we go - chapter three! Once again, I hope it's not repetitive, and it might be a tiny bit fluffy. And internet hugs for my reviewers, especially LilMissJules!**

**And, just remember, this is set **_**before **_**book 7, so Henry and Veronica aren't awake yet. (But of course, not having read book 7, I wouldn't know anything about **_**that**_**. Or Briar Rose, or The Master for that matter. Ok, I admit it, I actually know all about Briar Rose and also The Master being **_**you-know-who**_** but let's pretend I'm a good girl who avoids spoilers like the plague. I found out totally by accident, I swear!)**

***

"Never come back!?" Sabrina exploded. "You mean, when you said I'd stare at the wall for the rest of my life - I didn't think you actually meant that I'd… I wouldn't just look at a wall forever!"

"Maybe not in the real world - I mean, _maybe; _you are pretty dumb - but here, yeah."

Sabrina bit her lip hard to keep from whimpering. It was a frightening thought, to be stuck here in this topsy-turvy world forever, staring at walls. She would probably forget to eat and starve to death.

"Good thing you've got me, huh Grimm?"

As much as she hated it, the fairy boy's cocky smile did make Sabrina feel a little better. "'You' and 'good' don't belong in the same sentence," she told him.

"Because I'm a - "

"Villain of the worst kind," Sabrina interrupted with a roll of her eyes. "I've heard."

"And don't you forget it!" Puck exclaimed.

"That's one of the things I wouldn't mind forgetting," she said. She expected a snarky reply, but Puck had fallen silent. He came to an abrupt halt and she ran into him from behind.

Sabrina looked up to see what lay ahead of them. The candy-striped hall dissolved into darkening red and white wisps, all feeding into what looked like a black hole. It appeared to be spinning slowly, and Sabrina was sure it was growing bigger, getting ready to swallow them. It reminded her of the time tears she and Daphne had encountered not so long ago. The two girls had found a dark future on the other side and had since made every effort to make sure it never happened. Sabrina couldn't say she wanted to go through such an experience again, even if she was married on the other side.

"Puck?" she said timidly. "What's that?" She had to remind herself that his hand was gross and dirty and _Puck's _so that she wouldn't squeeze it tighter.

"Remember Alice's Pool of Tears?" Puck asked.

Sabrina thought so hard it made her head hurt. "I think so. She kind of had a nervous breakdown and cried a lot, and since she was big she practically drowned herself."

"That was around here."

"So… we go through the creepy black hole doorway and we fall into a big pool of Alice's tears?"

"Not quite. We go through the creepy black hole _tunnel_ - which is kind of long - and _then _we fall into a big pool of Alice's tears."

Sabrina chewed her lip, thinking this over. "How long is 'kind of long'?" she asked the fairy.

"Too long," he said, with a look of dread on his face. The last time she saw that look was when Granny Relda told him to have a bath. "And it's going to be especially long if you cry the whole time. I will seriously ditch you in there if you do."

"What do I have to cry about? Alice only cried because she couldn't find a way out. I'm sure we'll get back home all right." This was a lie, actually, but she wasn't going to tell him she was scared.

"That's not what I mean." Puck paused a moment, then continued. "Okay, think of it like this. When you look at an ant with a magnifying glass, it's bigger, right?"

Sabrina rolled her eyes again. "Yes, teacher."

"The creepy black hole tunnel is kind of like that, only with whatever you're feeling." He must have seen the confused look on her face and continued with an exasperated sigh. "Alice was feeling sad or bummed or despondent or something dumb like that, and the hall made her even sadder, so she cried. A _lot_."

"So…" Sabrina tried to work this out in her head. "So if I'm having a really good day and I'm really happy and I go in there, it'll make me even happier?"

"I guess. I've never seen anyone go in or out happy, though."

"Well, that doesn't sound too bad," Sabrina lied again. She tried to think happy thoughts.

Puck looked at her sceptically. "Whatever you say, Grimm. But I'm warning you, if you cry -- "

"Geez, Puck! I'm not gonna cry, okay?"

"Whatever!"

Sabrina steeled herself and the pair took a step forward. "Does it work on you?" she asked Puck at the last moment.

"Of course not," he said exasperatedly. Obviously he'd forgotten that he'd _told _her to ask questions.

"Why doesn't this place do anything to you, anyway?" Sabrina asked, further delaying their entry.

Puck shrugged. "I dunno. I never bothered to think about it. Maybe it's just 'cause I'm even older than it is. Or maybe it's just because I'm awesome."

"It's probably the first one."

"It's _probably_ because I'm awesome."

"Oh brother," Sabrina said. Then they stepped through the portal.

Though it was shrouded in darkness, Sabrina had expected the other side of the doorway to be lighter, but the tunnel was nearly too dark to see in.

"I _do not _like this at all," Sabrina said immediately.

"Afraid of the dark, Grimm?" Puck snickered.

"No!" she snapped. _I'm just afraid of what might be hiding in it, _she thought.

It might have been less unnerving if the tunnel hadn't been so silent. Sabrina was sure she would welcome even the creepiest bumps in the night in place of the eerie silence. But that could be remedied - Puck had told her to talk, hadn't he?

"Puck?" she said. Her voice echoed loudly around her, reverberating in her ears. "How do you know where we're going?"

"You just walk straight, Grimm," he said. "Even _you_ could manage that."

"Oh," she said. "How long did you say this would take?"

"I didn't."

"Oh. Well, how long will it take?"

"Um…"

"Puck," she meant to be stern, but she sounded more worried. It didn't surprise her. Her palms were sweating and her heart was racing. "How long will it take?"

"Just a little while, you know," he said evasively.

"I do _not _know!" she replied, her voice higher than usual. She started to chew on her lip. She was suddenly conscious of how hard she was breathing. It sounded exceptionally loud in the hollow darkness.

"Chill out, Grimm! It's just a little while!"

Sabrina stumbled once and tripped forward. When she'd righted herself, Puck was grumbling and she was holding his hand tightly in both of hers. Her heartbeat throbbed in her ears. She had already bitten through a whole layer of skin on her lip. She tasted blood and her panic rose. She found herself thinking of everything she was afraid of.

"When we get to the end of the tunnel, will we know it, or will we just drop off the edge into the water?" she asked.

"Well it depends."

"Depends on what?"

"On how dark it is at the Pool of Tears."

Sabrina said nothing. That didn't sound promising.

"Good thing you're not scared of the dark, though, huh?"

"I'm not scared of anything," Sabrina insisted, but it was such a bad lie that Puck laughed.

"You sure sound scared."

"I'm not scared!" she exclaimed. She sounded practically hysterical.

Puck, wisely, did not press the issue any further, and Sabrina's thoughts turned to more disturbing things.

"What about the people who forget their names and stuff while they're here? You said they never get back home, but do they just stare at things till they starve to death or die of exhaustion or what?"

"How should I know? They just get in here and are never seen or heard from again. I don't know whether they die or not."

Sabrina's reply to this was a tiny squeak. If she wasn't so scared, she would have thought to be embarrassed. Puck must think she was such a wimp.

"But didn't Alice just dream this whole place up?" Sabrina asked. "Couldn't we just wake ourselves up and we'll be back home?"

"It's not as simple as it sounds, smarty-pants. Alice saw herself in the real world and yelled at herself to wake up."

That was disappointing. "And what happens if you get hurt here?" Sabrina continued as the thoughts came to her. "Or what if… what if you die here?"

"I don't know; I've never died here," Puck said, but no reply would have been necessary. Sabrina wasn't listening to him. She was lost in the overpowering fear she'd unearthed in her own mind. She hadn't even realized there was so much to be afraid of, and now it was all hitting her at once.

"What if we run into the Queen of Hearts while we're here? Or someone else from the Scarlet Hand?"

"Oh please," Puck snorted. "The Trickster King can totally handle anything the Hand can dish out."

Sabrina ignored him. "The Cheshire Cat is in the Scarlet Hand, you know."

"The Cheshire Cat!" Puck snorted. "That poltroon couldn't beat up a can of tuna."

"And so is the Caterpillar. And Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, too!"

"Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum are from the Looking-Glass World," Puck pointed out, "not Wonderland."

"And… what if my parents never wake up?" she asked breathlessly.

Sabrina imagined that Puck's step faltered for just a split second. "They'll wake up," he said softly.

Anywhere else, she might have asked how he could be so sure, but she was so afraid that the answer would be 'I don't know' that she couldn't bring herself to do it.

"What if we lose?" Sabrina said.

"Lose?" Puck echoed. "What are you talking about?"

"What if the Scarlet Hand wins and we all die and…" she stopped. "Well, I guess _you _wouldn't mind, would you? Of course you wouldn't. What if - "

"Whoa, hold up there, Grimm," he stopped short and Sabrina ran into him again. She gasped in terror until she realized it was only Puck that she'd walked into. "What do you mean, _you guess I wouldn't mind_?"

"You know very well what I mean," she snapped. "The barrier would be gone, you could go anywhere you wanted, you could - "

"Well!" Puck exclaimed. "If you aren't the most selfish, rude, ungrateful, stupid little wretch I have ever met! And people think _I'm_ mean!"

_Oh no, _Sabrina thought, _oh no, I made him mad. I made him _really_ mad. Oh, he's going to be horrible to me. What if he's so mad that he ditches me here, all by myself?_

But Puck continued. "Did you forget that we've already solved the whole barrier problem once?" he raged. "Did you miss the part where I came back home with your insipid family when I could have stayed in New York and been King of the World? It's not like you made me come back, you know. I _chose _to come back, all by myself."

Sabrina bit her lip harder than ever. She tried to apologize but the words wouldn't come. Had she ever seen Puck this angry before? He was scary when he was angry.

"But I'm sure you think you'd all be better off without me, and you know best _as usual_, so I'll just pack up and move out. And then we'll see how long you Grimms - especially you - last without me."

"Puck! I'm sorry!" She blurted. It was too bad that she only apologized because she was so frightened - both that he would leave her there and that she would lose her (it had to be said) bodyguard - but she apologized nonetheless. "I didn't mean it," she said meekly.

Puck's countenance immediately changed. "Aw, no, come on! What did I say about _crying_?" he moaned.

"I'm not crying," Sabrina said hurriedly, afraid to upset him again. She really wasn't, but her voice was thick and husky, and in the dark, maybe Puck thought she was.

He squinted at her, then turned and they carried on as before. "Anyway, stupid, the Scarlet Hand can't win."

"Why not?"

"Didn't I just tell you? I could give any one of them such a butt-kicking, they'd - "

"You say any _one_ of them, but what about _all _of them? How are we ever going to beat them? We have two grown-ups - one of which is an old lady - a dog, a couple girls, and a boy who's afraid to take a bath."

"You'd know a lot about being afraid, pusface!" he sneered.

Sabrina paid no attention to him. "We don't even _know_ how many people they've got, and they're all magical."

"Well, so am I," he said arrogantly. "And besides, you're forgetting Mr Canis and Prince Charming and Snow White and Robin Hood and his Merry Men. There are plenty of Everafters who aren't in the Scarlet Hand."

"But - "

"What about Briar Rose? D'you really think _she's _in the Scarlet Hand?"

"No, but - "

"And Beauty? She saved Mr Canis from eating you all when he was in jail. And of course, there's always _me_."

Sabrina said nothing, for she had uncovered her worst fear yet. It was so horrible that for a moment she stopped breathing altogether.

It must have been there in her head all along, ever since she came to Ferryport Landing. But she'd tried so hard to drown all her fears that she'd never dug deep enough to find it.

What would happen to them if _Puck _were to join the Scarlet Hand?

She gasped when the thought fully sunk in. She ought to have known, if by nothing else, by his earlier speech that Puck would never do any such thing, but she didn't think of _that,_ and all of a sudden she dropped his hand like it was unbearably hot. Sabrina stumbled back and tripped over her own feet, landing on the hard floor with a grunt.

Nothing brings one to their senses quite like a sudden pain, and the sharp, jarring pain that accompanied Sabrina's landing did exactly that. She waited a moment for Puck to grumble and call her stupid and then help her up. When he didn't, she called his name.

There was no answer.


End file.
